JD at Professional Soldier sent us a link from the Bend Bulletin, one of Joel Lisson‘s local newspapers. I guess he’s not such a braggart these days that he wants to talk to the local media about his special forces career;

Lisson didn’t come to the door of his Bend home when The Bulletin stopped by last week. Instead a woman with a dog answered. After checking with Lisson about an interview request, she passed a card for Christopher Heaps, a Bend attorney, and said to talk to him.

Asked about the questions surrounding his client’s military service record, Heaps said, “We don’t have any comment on it.”

Heaps also said Lisson was not interested in speaking with the newspaper.

[…]

The Jewells got in touch with retired Master Sgt. Jeff “J.D.” Hinton, who served in the Special Forces. Hinton runs a website called professionalsoldiers.com.

“They wanted to find out if basically what he was telling was true,” said Hinton, who lives in Arizona.

Hinton said he was in the 5th Special Forces Group, the same group Shawn Jewell said Lisson claims to have been part of when in the Army, and he served around the same time Lisson would have in the 1980s. But Hinton doesn’t remember Lisson being one of his fellow soldiers.

Ooops, big mistake. There’s always someone who should know you. Some of my Facebook friends are people with whom I served all the way back to 1975. The internet is a very small place, especially in the military.

The reporter did his job, in this case. He talked to JD, Mary and Doug Sterner who are all interviewed in the article. You should click over and read the whole thing. Basically, Shawn Jewell, the owner of Reality Environment Applied Combat Tactics (REACT) should have checked out Lisson’s creds, since he was taking on Lisson as a partner with skills and supposed expertise Jewell needed for his business, but I understand, we all want to be told the truth and stop being so skeptical about people. But guys like Lisson don’t make that possible.

It is nice to see a poser busted this way in the the MSM, how nice would it be if the local press also did stories like this on Philip Monkress, Dullass rAdIOTeLEpHoNeOperATor, and some of the other posers that have earned top honors here at TAH.

If he committed an act of heroism in an aircraft while it was in flight when he was traveling as a passenger, he could get the Air Medal. It could happen. I have never heard of it, but it could happen. It didn’t happen to him, but it could happen.

My Dad’s got an Air Medal and the only wings he has are Master Blaster and Glider. At the time he was 5th SFG, Det. B-33 at An Loc in 1966 and flew some missions in an O-1 Birddog on some operations. Perhaps I don’t know the full story there; I saw photos of rocket pods on the O-1 … maybe he lit up some VC.

The rocket pods used WP(smoke) rockets to mark targets for Huey gunships or fixed wing to hit. The Birddog flew low and slow,main weapon the radio to call in arty and or air strikes. To fly like that took great big ones. Joe

I ran into a LT in BE Oklahoma happened to be in my battalion years back. Don’t think we ever actually met, but we still knew of each other. I do not think it is possible to do several years at any post and not be known at all

Joe Williams: in the Army, the Air Medal may be awarded to non-aircrew personnel if their duties involve the support of or participation in combat operations and require them to be on the bird for other than simply transportation to/from the AO. From what I’ve seen, most commonly that is duty as an airborne Forward Observer, RTO/other comm support, or as part of an airborne Command and Control element. Certain intel specialties might possibly also qualify if their duties require being on a bird in combat as a “rider” to operate/monitor special equipment.

All but the latter were fairly common during Vietnam, hence the fairly large number of non-aircrew personnel in the Army who were awarded the Air Medal. Not positive about the last possibility (intel specialist operating/monitoring airborne special equipment) during Vietnam.

And before I forget, again: kudos to Dylan Darling, the reporter who did the story on this LSoS. Unlike most of his colleagues, he actually did a professional job and checked his facts vice accepting wildly implausible BS from someone and writing an unverified story based on same.

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About thisainthell

We are all military combat veterans and we write primarily from that perspective. Everyone who writes here has a Combat Infantry Badge, a Combat Medic Badge, a Combat Action Badge or a Combat Action Ribbon. We write about issues that matter to combat veterans..read more »